


Several and None

by phobiaDeficient (TheTriggeredHappy)



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Extremely Heavy Angst, Heavy Angst, IM ALSO SAD AS HELL, ITS SAD AS HELL, M/M, they both die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:17:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/phobiaDeficient
Summary: Zombie AU, how Sniper might have died, how Scout might have died, and how they both might have died.





	Several and None

**Author's Note:**

> [[scout is Ben and sniper is Ethan in this AU. written in literally abt an hour and a half. im dead right now. warning, this is extremely fuckin sad and also basically written for like three people to understand]]

 

 

The bite had nearly taken off his whole hand. It was deep. It was visible. It was bleeding too fast to stop now, especially with how much blood Ethan had already been losing from various wounds over the past few days.

 

Ben watched it happen, and was trying to staunch the bleeding, but it wouldn’t stop, why wouldn’t it stop—

 

And Ethan had a look, now. A peculiar look in his eyes. The same sort of look that he’d gotten a few moments before shooting the thing that their friend had turned into. The look of remorse, and lying just under that, the knowledge that there wasn’t anything to be remorseful over, because it was too late anyways.

 

It couldn’t be too late. It couldn’t be.

 

“The Doc can fix this,” Ben said, holding on tightly to the place where the bleeding wouldn’t stop coming from, it had hit a vein, “I know he can, we just—we gotta get you back to the Doc, okay? C’mon, we can make it!”

 

“It’s a bite,” Ethan said softly, already trying to console Ben, already trying to soften the blow, but Ben wouldn’t hear it.

 

“Maybe if we’re quick we’ll have time to—to—we can fix this, we just gotta get back to camp!” Ben insisted, and he had to wipe the burn out of his eyes with his upper arm, because his hands and forearms were soaked with blood.

 

“I’ll be gone by then,” Ethan said, voice soft, eyes soft. With his good hand, he plucked his sunglasses off of his collar, hung them on Ben’s shirt. And Ben knew why he was doing it, that was a souvenir, they’d made a deal that if one of them got lethally hurt they would take either the sunglasses and hat or the tags and cap as a souvenir, and Ethan’s hat was back at the camp because it was hot out—

 

Ben shook his head, closing his eyes tightly, and kept shaking it, and didn’t stop until he felt a hand on his cheek—was the hand wet, or was that his face? This was a nightmare. He was going to wake up any second. Any second.

 

“Ben,” Ethan said softly, words a breath across his face. He opened his eyes.

 

“I can’t just leave you here,” he croaked, “I can’t. Don’t make me just leave you here.”

 

“I... I was actually gonna ask something else,” Ethan admitted.

 

A pause.

 

“I can’t,” Ben said, and surely his heart had stopped.

 

“Please, I, I don’t wanna turn into one of those monsters, Ben,” Ethan half-pleaded, and he was well trained in keeping a calm expression, but Ben knew his tells, and bore witness to the beginnings of a panic spiral.

 

“I can’t,” Ben repeated.

 

“Then—then I can do it to myself, but, I can’t do it with my own rifle, the barrel is too long,” Ethan explained, eyes moving to Ben’s hip, where his pistol was, ready for use. Three bullets.

 

“I can’t, I can’t,” Ben repeated, shaking his head again.

 

“Please,” Ethan pleaded, gripping the front of his shirt with his good hand, eyes too wide. “I don’t wanna be one of those monsters. Please.”

 

“I don’t know how,” he managed, head swimming, everything swimming.

 

Ethan inhaled, exhaled. “Look at me, love,” he requested, and Ben did as requested. “Here’s what you’ll do. Right now, take the gun out and pull out two of the bullets.”

 

His hands were shaking, and slick with blood. It took a few tries to do as he was told. Ethan was pale.

 

“Good. Now you’re gonna put the gun on the ground, and take my bag and knife, and put my rifle on your back. You’ll put the pistol down next to me, and you’ll walk to the tree line. Just to the tree line. And if you make it there, walk ten feet further. Just go by incriments of ten feet, you can do that. You’re brave. You can do it.”

 

Ben stood up. He picked up Ethan’s bag, slung it over his shoulder. His knife too, and the rifle.

 

“You’re doing well,” Ethan said, voice still even despite everything. “You can do this.”

 

“I can’t,” he whispered, but he was still moving to sling the rifle onto his back, to put down the pistol on the ground.

 

“You’re doing it just fine,” Ethan encouraged.

 

But Ben had stalled. He looked up, eyes filling too rapidly with tears. This would be the last time he ever saw Ethan.

 

“Promise me one more thing,” Ethan said, breath coming short. “Once you start walking, don’t look back, okay?”

 

“I love you,” Ben said, a confession, a plead, a phrase to simply fill the space.

 

Ethan focused on inhaling, exhaling. “I know,” he said, voice too gentle.

 

Ben turned and began walking.

 

The treeline rose up before him, a hundred miles or twenty paces away. Another ten feet from that, nothing.

 

The treeline rose up around him, and ten feet from that, nothing.

 

Ten feet later, an eternity away, and his heart broke.

 

Another ten feet later, his heart continued breaking, the pieces rubbing together painfully with each mechanical, jolting step.

 

Another ten feet later, twenty seconds had passed.

 

Another ten feet later, a world away, a gunshot.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

He shouldn’t have let Ben go off alone. He shouldn’t have let Ben leave the gun and take the bat instead. He should have turned around the second he caught wind of the hoarde. He should’ve run faster. He should’ve tried to stick together. He should’ve been smarter. He should’ve shot the thing before it got to Ben.

 

Should’ve. Should’ve.

 

Ben had a chunk taken out of him. Usually Ethan would ask if it was bites or claws. Claws could be dealt with, bites needed amputation as soon as possible, and if amputation wasn’t an option, then... he didn’t wanna think about it.

 

But the chunk was below his ribcage, and had damaged too much. Ben wouldn’t make it, and it didn’t take a doctor to say so. Ben was dying. He had only minutes, maybe less, before his body would give out.

 

Ethan... didn’t know what to do. He wanted to scream. He wanted to walk into the hoard with his arms outstretched. He wanted, above all else, to fix it.

 

Now wasn’t the time.

 

He’d laid Ben down on the mattress, to try and make him more comfortable, if only for the moment. It was ruined now, certainly, but Ethan had the lingering suspicion that it would be quite some time before he would have the energy to care about something like that. Even if this mattress was, admittedly, one of the few places associated with only good memories left. This was where Ben had first said he loved him. This was where they’d spent nights idly weaving half-baked and impossible plans for when everything was fixed. This was where they’d gone on the day they reunited, only a few days before, but lifetimes ago—

 

Ben was smiling up at him, and deja vu struck like a golf club between the eyes. Painfully.

 

“Hey, c’mon,” he said, and reached a hand—wiped clean of blood—to the side of Ethan’s face, carding through his rough facial hair. “It ain’t like we never thought this could happen, y’know?”

 

Ethan couldn’t get any air into his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

 

Ben was too brave. Too fucking brave. Too strong. Even now he tried for a joke, wanting to keep spirits light, maybe for the last time. It only made it hurt worse. “Don’t cry on me, now. We just had a good cry a couple days ago, remember? The happy kind, though. It ain’t time to cry again. How you gonna remember my, my beautiful face if you’re cryin’?”

 

Sure enough, tears were streaming down Ethan’s cheeks. Ben wasn’t much better, his smile watery, although it was unclear if it was involuntary, or the fear of dying, or the fact that Ethan was crying.

 

“Come on,” Ben choked out, breath shaky, “give me one last smile? Please?”

 

Ethan couldn’t. He wanted to smile, wanted to give Ben anything he could, _everything_  he could, because maybe that would fix it, any maybe then Ben would stay with him just a little bit longer. But he couldn’t smile.

 

“Come on, Ethan,” Ben sniffled, gulping hard, fighting to keep his eyes open, blinking away tears, and still, somehow, smiling. “You’re breakin’ my heart here.”

 

Ethan wiped at his eyes, sniffled, wiped again. Tried as hard as he could to muster a smile. It wasn’t working. So he tried to think of something happy. Looking at Ben’s face, a good few memories came to mind. He managed it, cracking a smile, and Ben’s widened in return seeing it.

 

“There we go,” he breathed, exhale too shaky, lungs too weak. “There’s my favorite smile on my favorite guy.”

 

That got a wider smile, a sniffle. “I love you,” Ethan choked, voice rough and terribly unattractive, destroyed by the force of holding back sobs combined with the strain of the screaming he’d done earlier as he realized what was about to happen to Ben.

 

“I love you too,” Ben said, and his hand moved from Ethan’s face to instead grip at the hand against his chest. “Hey. I’ll see you on the other side eventually, okay? But not too soon, okay? I’ll—I’ll be pissed.”

 

Ethan nodded numbly.

 

“And I...” Ben started to say, but then he paused to inhale, and exhaled and inhaled, and shook, and he was still.

 

A few moments passed. Ben’s hand was limp. Ethan blinked, and between one blink and the next, the light was gone from Ben’s eyes. He was still sort of smiling.

 

Ethan screamed.

 

He didn’t stop screaming for a long, long time.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The door was barricaded, for now. The monsters were kept at bay, for now. They were safe, for now. They had bought themselves time, for now. For now.

 

Ethan sat against the wall on the far side of the room from the door. There was no more food. No more water. The hunger pangs had gotten worse with each passing day, and he couldn’t deny that his head spun as he stood up.

 

That hadn’t stopped Ben, who even then was heroically hefting another chair onto the barricade pile.

 

“Good,” Ben said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand despite the fact that there was no more water to sweat out. “They aren’t gettin’ in _this_  door!”

 

As if in response, a mottled hand busted through the thin board that made up the door, beginning to claw at the pile through the small hole, either ignoring or ignorant to the sharp edges further tearing it apart.

 

Ben jumped back, swayed on his feet, eyes wide and alarmed. He was pale, and had been for quite some time.

 

“Nevermind,” he managed, nearly a whimper.

 

He hugged at himself, beginning to shake violently. Ethan hesitantly approached, and watched as the same math that had gone through his own head rapidly ran through Ben’s.

 

“Are—are you sure that we couldn’t find any more bullets?” Ben asked, voice as steady as he was on his feet. That is to say, he was swaying in place and didn’t seem to notice.

 

“I’m sure,” he replied.

 

“And are you sure that...” Ben tried next, eyes frantically flicking here and there through the room, “...that, that your trusty ol’ knife is dull?”

 

“I’m sure,” he repeated, taking another step closer.

 

Ben’s eyes were still flickering back and forth, but now they were unseeing, too wide, too empty from fear, too manic. A few too-quick breaths. “Is there even any pills, rat poison? I know it’s not a very classy way to go, but anything’s better than... than...”

 

“I’m sure,” Ethan said one last time, and tried to hold them both up as Ben collapsed into him, clutching like Ethan was the last living being on the planet. He might very well be.

 

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” Ben managed between panicked gasps. “Where’s help, where’s the help we were expecting, where’s—where’s _anybody_ , I, I don’t wanna die like this!”

 

Ethan held him close, gently shushing him, a soothing hand running over his back, where his backbone jutted clearly from where muscles once sat, trying to comfort him.

 

“I, I wanted to find my family again, I wanted to travel the world with you, I, I wanted to grow up and get older and live a normal life, I...” Ben babbled, and at some point his hyperventilating turned into hysterical sobbing.

 

“I know,” Ethan soothed, feeling nothing but cold, now. Nothing at all. There were no emotions left, just a husk, now. No hope. Hardly even a heartbeat.

 

Ben clutched him close, somehow mustering tears despite dehydration, which wetted the collar of Ethan’s shirt. “I wanted to marry you,” he whimpered.

 

Apparently, Ethan  _did_  have emotions left, because in that moment he felt the harshest pain of his life, right in the center of his chest.

 

He held Ben tightly enough that he would be worried about crushing his feeble frame if not for the fact that he knew he himself had gotten just as feeble from starvation.

 

There was the sound of cracking wood. The sound of items falling. Ethan tilted his head up, and there behind Ben he could see the hole widening at an alarming rate.

 

Ben jumped, some inkling of a fight-or-flight response still remaining, and started trying to turn. Ethan held him tighter.

 

“Don’t turn around, don’t look,” he said, managing a commanding tone. Ben shook, but obeyed, even as he winced at each new crack of wood, each falling object. “You—you remember that song? The song you used to sing during the summer?”

 

“When we pretended everything was okay, and we were just some kids at a picnic?” Ben asked, voice fracturing, but the trembling lightened only slightly.

 

“Yeah, you said—“ a crack from the door, a wince, and Ethan spoke faster, “—you said you used to take dates on picnics if it was warm, and listen to the radio, and we didn’t have a radio so you just sang. You remember the song you sang? Do you remember that?”

 

“Of course I do,” Ben said, half a breathy laugh. “Of course.”

 

“Please, please just sing it for me, right now,” Ethan asked.

 

“I forget the,” Ben tried, and his breath quickened at the sound of a tumbling chair, “I forget most of the words.”

 

“Sing it anyways, I’ll help you remember,” Ethan said, watching as a monster began wedging itself through the hole in the barricade.

 

After a moment, Ben began humming, the tone slow and sweet and only cracking a little bit with his too-dry throat. Another object falling, and he stalled, and so Ethan began humming too, the tune coming back to him suddenly like an electric shock, and giving him the energy to begin rocking them both back and forth in place.

 

The shaking stopped, after a few moments. There was a monster in the room now, moving towards them. Ethan held Ben tightly. He hummed a bit louder. All at once, Ben seemed to remember some of the words.

 

“ _Take my hand_ ,” he sang, voice trembling, failing to hold the tune, and the sweetest thing Ethan had ever heard in his life. “ _Take my whole life too..._ ”

 

Ethan remembered the next phrase in the same moment the monster reached them, another few in its wake.

 

Ben screamed as the monster tore him away, and Ethan was sure he was screaming too. He remembered shouting for Ben to take his hand, to please hold onto his hand, please, even as they were swarmed. The monsters bit and tore, attacked fiercely, but Ethan shouted to please, please just keep looking at him, don’t look away, please, even as his own vision whited out at the pain, even as the roaring of the blood in his ears and the monsters around them drowned out Ben’s screaming.

 

And then the grip Ben had on his hand, the last of his strength, disappeared, going limp. And Ethan knew. And Ethan died, thinking of the cool water of a running stream and the sunshine through the branches overhead and the love of his life singing gently against his shoulder.

 

_“'Cuz I can’t help, falling in love with you.”_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [[i hope ur happy blake. i might edit this further later]]


End file.
